


Would You Bleed?

by Arkie



Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Ambiguity, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 02:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18160010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkie/pseuds/Arkie
Summary: Following a trying time, Jack is dead. No one feels quite so sure of anything anymore.





	Would You Bleed?

Weary and filled with a short-lived and hollow sense of success, the four monks returned from the mountaintop to the point where Jack's body lay. 

His blank, glassy stare remained fixed on some point past Omi's shoulder; bearing no visible wounds, yet, undeniably, dead. 

For what felt a long while longer than it was, they just looked at him, skin crawling, avoiding and inexplicably drawn to the haunting, lifeless red of his eyes. 

Clay eventually knelt and picked him up, gently, probably more gently than they ever had while he was alive. 

They carried his body back to the temple; laid on a stone plinth in the courtyard while they tried to figure out what to do. Spicer Mansion was empty, they already knew. They weren't sure how they'd contact his parents. Kimiko murmured she could probably figure something out, through her family connections or the internet.

They sat in silence, murmuring options every so often, only half-listening. 

* * *

Wuya came.  

She strode into the temple, barefoot and head held high, as ever. She gave away nothing, but for her singular unspoken objective, ignoring them all and stalking straight for Jack. They only halfheartedly tried to stop her - namely, Rai did - the others couldn't bring themselves to get in her way, and just watched. Raimundo stepped into her path, palms out and brow downturned, angrily muttering her rudeness, her insensitivity - how  _dare_ she come here at a time like this. But she ignored him too, and the lack of aggression was what silenced him as she passed, pressing his lips together and glaring emptily.

She stepped up and gazed down at the still form on the bed of rock. She took in his entire form, from his eyes, still blank, still unyielding and empty, to his stupid, many-strapped platform boots, and back. As though searching for some sign; of life, of resistance. Her expression remained blank and haughty, but maybe something small changed. Softened, bent, broke. She raised a hand, brought it to his still face, reaching out, but there it slowed and hovered. Her fingers twitched, and then curled, slightly. She didn't lower her hand; it remained there, hesitating, as though caught between two powerful currents. Finally, she tensed so much it turned into a fist, nails digging into her palm. She pulled it away, slowly, near trembling, back to her side. And turned to face them. 

At very long last, she spoke for the first time since her arrival, in a low, slow, hiss. "You could have saved him." 

No one answered. No one could, or perhaps they collectively thought the rebuttal went unspoken but clear, didn't need to be uttered. They were probably right. 

At their silence, she gave a huff that became more of a snarl. Then, lower, more dismissively: "You should have protected him." 

She didn't allow herself another look, stepping away and striding back towards the open temple doors. 

Clay spoke up, tone quiet but clear, as she passed. "I didn't know you cared."

She stopped to glare. 

He nodded slightly to the form on the plinth. "I don't think he knew, either." 

There was nothing to say. She whipped her hair behind her and swept out of the temple, teeth clenched against the sneer pulling at her lips, and the burning she kept from her eyes and forced to instead flood her soul through sheer willpower. 

* * *

Later, Chase spoke in a rare fit of curiosity. "You are fifteen hundred years old. Why would you care at all?"

And in a similarly rare lapse into contemplation, gaze fixed out a window on a cloud, Wuya replied honestly. "I was locked in a puzzle box for fifteen hundred years. Really, I'm quite a bit younger than that."

**Author's Note:**

> I have some idea of what might have happened on that mountaintop, but mostly it's up to interpretation ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Might be expanded, if people want it to be.


End file.
